Lawless Lands: The crisis in Indian Country

Program born in Colo. becomes national model

The cross-deputization experiment launched by
Troy Eid, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, is seen as
a small step. Eid would like to have tribes assume
far greater authority in the criminal-justice system. (Post / RJ Sangosti)

Colorado U.S. Attorney Troy Eid likes to tell the story of how his father arrived in America from Egypt with $100 in his pocket. The surprise may be that, as he grew up in Wheat Ridge, his family's immigrant experience gave him an empathy for what he calls the similar "colonial experience" borne by American Indians on reservations throughout the West.

That led to years spent working with tribes and visiting reservations long before he became Colorado's chief federal law enforcement officer 15 months ago. He's certainly the only U.S. attorney who holds a Navajo medicine-man certificate.

It also made him familiar with the serious crime problems that roil many reservations, and the poor functioning of justice there. During his confirmation hearings, he told lawmakers he would make law enforcement on Colorado's two Indian reservations a top priority.

"I think most Americans would be absolutely appalled that basic rights under the Constitution are routinely not enforced in Indian Country," Eid said. "It's a system breakdown."

That has turned Eid into a crusader of sorts within the Justice Department. He has called for reducing the federal government's role as the main investigator and prosecutor of serious crime on reservations and handing far more authority to the tribes themselves.

In the short term, Eid said he is focusing on fixes within the constraints of the current system.

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Bowling over bureaucratic hurdles, Eid in February initiated a program to federally deputize tribal police officers and sheriff's deputies surrounding Colorado's two reservations.

As de facto federal agents, tribal police can now arrest non-Indians committing crimes on Indian land, an authority they've never had before. And sheriff's deputies as well as state troopers can now act as backup for tribal cops on reservations and make felony arrests that previously had to wait for an FBI or Bureau of Indian Affairs agent to arrive.

The program has quickly become a national model, spreading to U.S. attorney districts around the country. But it is unclear what difference it ultimately can make.

Jim Candelaria, a federal prosecutor in Durango, said tribal police on the Southern Ute reservation have made several recent arrests of non-Indians involved in domestic violence, a chronic complaint. And non-Indians driving while drunk used to be simply escorted off the reservation by tribal cops. Now they're immediately arrested.

But across the country, crimes committed by non-Indians are a small percentage of cases on most reservations. And many sheriff's departments and state patrols nationally seem uninterested, worried about liability concerns that result from sending officers onto Indian land.

On the one criterion where it matters most - whether federal prosecutors are receiving and prosecuting more reservation cases - the Colorado experiment has yet to make a significant dent, Eid concedes.

"I think it's a tool that can be helpful," Eid said of cross-deputization, "but it's very limited."